Student-Athlete Realities

I went to my school on a soccer scholarship. It was 20 hours away and my parents drove me down on a Friday and left that Sunday. I showed up to our training camp not knowing what to expect. I arrived with a broken arm which meant I could run and workout with the team but when it came to actually playing the game I had to sit out and chase balls. This wasn’t exactly how I had imagined spending my first week with the team. We practiced 3 times a day and in between those practices we would either be sleeping or eating, I had never felt so exhausted in my life. And classes had not even begun.

Soccer is a Fall sport which means our season runs from the end of August until the beginning of November. During that period of time, roughly every other week we would leave on a Thursday, play a game away on Friday and Sunday and come home that Sunday night, usually after midnight. I missed some of my very first classes. You learn very quickly how to plan ahead and make sure you know what is going on in all of your classes and what assignments are due. In my first year, on one of our very first road trips I remember one of the older girls asking me if I had done one of the assignments for one of my classes. I remembered the teacher talking about it but never really mentioning it again. I figured she would bring it up again when it was closer to the due date. The older girl on my team kind of laughed at me and informed me that that doesn’t happen anymore; teachers no longer remind you of everything. You get a syllabus at the beginning of the year and that’s the set schedule. This particular assignment was due that Friday night and we were going to be on the bus until about 4pm on Friday. I started writing stuff down on paper and as soon as we got to the hotel I emailed the assignment to my teacher just a couple of minutes before the deadline. From that day on, I wrote everything from the syllabus in my planner and kept it up to date. To the normal student body this may seem like a burden, but to you and your team these types of situations become second nature.

Being a student-athlete is definitely not easy, but it is one of the most rewarding experiences. My advice: on the days when you feel like you can’t handle it anymore and you would rather just be a “regular” student, don’t give up!

Here are a few things that I came to understand during my first year as a student-athlete:

* You might have been the best player on your old team, but you no longer are. You are competing for positions against people who are sometimes more than 4 years older than you.

* You will question yourself more than once a week as to why you are doing this. (For me, these thoughts occurred mostly during 6am practices or fitness practices.)

* You need to show up to practice every time, and you need to make sure that all your assignments are handed in on time. You will very often feel like it is physically impossible to fit everything in.

* You will become very familiar with the phrase: “If you’re early, you are on time; if you’re on time, you are late; and if you are late don’t even bother showing up” You will find yourself showing up to everything at least 30 minutes early.

* You will learn to write everything down in your planner in order to stay on top of things. At the end of any activity, you will look into the planner to see what's next. Then you will learn: know what's next all the time. That way, when one thing goes overtime and the other one is just beginning, you will be able to make a choice.

* You will realize that somehow, although you have very little time to yourself, you are managing and getting through it.

* You will realize that no matter what your team is behind you to support you.

* You will eventually realize that your team is your new family.

People do combine being an athlete with being a student. The rest of your team is doing it. If you're organized, so can you.